


and even the weariest river (winds safely to the sea)

by oliversqueen (olivcrqueenx)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Minor Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Time Travel, inspired by the promo for 7x09, no betas we die like every version of coulson, this fic is so bad im so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25393591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivcrqueenx/pseuds/oliversqueen
Summary: daisy johnson is almost seven the first time the concept of soulmate marks becomes a real thing.or, the soulmate au absolutely no one asked for
Relationships: Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 11
Kudos: 150





	and even the weariest river (winds safely to the sea)

**Author's Note:**

> sorry in advance for this fic, any previous season plot inconsistencies, and the lowercase. this was written at 1 am on my phone while i was supposed to be studying for my molecular biology exam but instead was in my feelings abt this ship. hope u like it, if u hate it, dw me too. might write more if anyone vibes with this au.
> 
> title from the garden of proserpine by algernon charles swinburne

daisy johnson is almost seven the first time the concept of soulmate marks becomes a real thing. one of the girls at the orphanage tells her loudly and brightly _someone will have the same mark as you! and they'll be with you forever, and they'll never ever leave you!_

it sounds a little dumb and a little fantastical, but then the brodys send her back to the orphanage, and suddenly the idea of someone who _will be with her forever and never ever leave her,_ is the thing she hangs on to every sleepless night. 

her mark covers the whole side of her left arm, starting at her shoulder as a shaky line, dividing into two at her elbow, ending on either side of left wrist, pink.  
'it looks like lightning,' one of her friends tells her, staring at it, envious because hers is just a black band around her thumb, 'and not the harry potter's scar kind, the real thing.' 

the mark gets her through everything, and even that might be an understatement. it's a glaring, unignorable reminder that there is someone out there waiting for her, someone who will be with her forever and never leave her. 

soulmates aren't always romantic, she learns. she meets a boy whose soulmate is his brother, and dates a guy whose soulmate is his childhood best friend, a lesbian. soulmates aren't always romantic - they're something far more important. 

(meant for you. they're meant for you.)

she wins a computer in a bet, and almost considers joining one of those websites where you share your mark - but she doesn't, because there's a part of her that hates that she wants her soulmate so badly. she admits to one of the hackers of the rising tide that she's jealous of all of the people who have already met their soulmates, because it feels like everyone she meets has. 

artemis37: dw abt ittt  
artemis37: my grandma met hers at like 71  
artemis37: itll happen when its supposed to

it is what it is. she tries not to let it bother her too much, rubs her mark slightly when she's distressed, tries to believe in the universe and its grand plans. 

the computer she won ends up being a weapon in her hands, and the reason her life takes a turn so sharply she's thrown against the wall of the metaphorical car. joining shield wasn't exactly on her to do list.  
and yet.  
it feels like the most important thing she's ever done. 

she meets coulson, the leader, and his soulmate, may, and wonders if her soulmate will be that drastically different from her. and she meets fitzsimmons - with matching marks spread across their backs across their shoulders, reaching up to their necks, almost wing like from the peeks she gets - and she wonders if everyone she meets already has their match, what the hell. 

maybe that's what pushes her towards ward. that, and the fact that she spots a mark on the side of his arm that looks suspiciously like her own, and she's elated, but cautious, because she doesn't know for sure, doesn't want to get her hopes up, but wouldn't it be perfect if he was? 

a week before the world goes to hell in a hand-basket with hydra, he shows her his whole arm, and... it's not what she thought it would be.  
his mark is like hers, but half - it starts at his elbow, just an uneven parabola, a curving river or road, and his arm empty up to his shoulder. 

she's disappointed, but hopeful they can still be something - 

until she isn't. 

she stops actively looking for the mark after that. 

it's probably fate that it looks for her instead.  
her new found powers reach an extreme she can't understand, and she ends up in afterlife, in a place so different from anywhere she's ever been, that - if she had just waited a little bit, if she had just been a little late - she might have missed it.  
might have missed _him_. 

lincoln campbell. her soulmate.  
they aren't together at first - but everything changes after they are.  
no obstacle is too much. no fight too difficult, no pain too unbearable, not now that she has lincoln. to be with her forever. to never ever leave her. 

he traces her mark with his fingers whenever he can, sending shivers down her spine, and she returns the favor whenever she gets the chance. his mark is identical to hers but in soft red, _like an artery too close to the skin,_ he says. her heart swells every time she sees it. 

because she waited so long. 

'should have known,' she says one morning, 'my lightning mark could only be yours.'  
he tugs her arm closer to look at it thoughtfully. 'huh. i guess it does kinda look like lightning.'  
'wait, what did you think it looked like?'  
'honestly? .......a fault line, like one caused by, i don't know, a quake -' 

despite everything, despite hydra, the aliens, the war, the things she has to do - she's never been happier than the moments that she has with him. even when things get difficult - just knowing he's there. her soulmate. it's everything everyone told her it would be. 

she should have known it wouldn't last.  
lincoln goes out into the sky. disappears like lightning once it's struck, leaving only darkness behind.  
she leaves shield, and every last reminder of lincoln, behind. swaps the uniform for dark clothes with long sleeves and doesn't look at her mark again, not when she can avoid it. she's furious at him, and the world, and herself, because he was supposed to never leave, supposed to always be here, and god - she can't believe that she had actually believed that could happen.

it takes her a long, long time to go back. and even longer to move forward.  
but she does. 

still. it's smiles, but averted eyes - when mack and yo-yo turn out to be soulmates. when fitz and simmons are torn apart and reunite again, and again, and again. when coulson fidgets with his right hand, where his pale mark covers his palm, and may does the exact same thing in the exact same way. 

it's one day, months later, that she wakes up and walks up to the bathroom mirror, and looks at it again.  
it's still there. the same as ever, the pink line, every curve she knows by heart.  
her soulmate mark.  
lincoln's mark.  
proof that he was here. she had him. her soulmate. maybe not for long, but he was here - he loved her. that has to count for something.  
it does, she thinks. it counts for everything. 

(after that day, it's a mark of pride, something that connects her to lincoln forever, and always will, and that _is_ something to be proud of. that she got to have him.) 

there's loads of people out there who find love outside their soulmate bond, coulson and simmons and yo-yo remind her.  
she wants to to be open to that possibility.  
(if this job doesn't get to her first.)  
everything else goes out the window when the chronicoms come into the picture. another war to fight, another evil to confront - only the playing field is different. the playing field is time itself.  
daisy feels like it says a lot about her that she's not even remotely surprised by the time travel part.  
a regular tuesday.  
in 1931.  


.  
..  
...  
....  


daniel sousa shows up in the form of a colossal wrench in their plan.  
a grenade, thrown into their plan. a literal tank, because what are the odds that peggy carter's old partner and closest friend would show up to the base the exact moment simmons was impersonating her? astronomical. next to none.  
but it happens.  
at this point, she thinks, walking down the hallway to his office, rehearsing her story, someone on this team just has chronic bad luck, and it might just be her.  
but he believes her. even though she doublecrosses him, she feels genuinely bad for a moment, because his file was impressive, and she might be - a tiny bit of a fan. (nowhere near coulson's level, of course, but a little.)  
she's sure they'll never see him again. until coulson, captured, calls and tells them that they've time travelled to the day that sousa dies. 

while mack is mulling over what to do about that, daisy learns three things about sousa - the first is that he's a _hell_ of a agent, the second, that he somehow saw hydra and their plans over sixty years before anyone else caught on, and the third, that he is relentless in his pursuit of the right thing.  
_this is a fight i'll wage alone if i have to. i'd give my life for it._  
it breaks her heart a little, and she thinks, _you're going to._  
she wishes he wasn't going to.  
if anyone asks, she'll never admit it, but if mack hadn't decided to save sousa, she might have pulled another 1931 and done it anyway. she would have been benched, fired, yelled at for hours - but it would have been worth it, because she has a feeling that the world is a lot better for having someone like daniel sousa in it.

she realizes just how much after nathaniel malick drains her blood for her powers.

she doesn't remember much from inside that room - only sousa's hand on her neck, his hesitation at seeing her arm, the deep echo of the words, _we're going home,_ over and over. images of her mother float in front of her. dreams of afterlife.  
'we're going home.'  
_where is home,_ she wonders blindly, and her hand aches. her hand. she has to open her hand.  
'plenty of fight left in you after all.'  
this time, when she drifts into the darkness, she stays there. 

she wakes once, briefly, to the soft whir of the healing chamber, and voices. simmons. sousa.

'you did save her.'  
'trust me, she played a big part in that. how long will she need to rest for? '  
'i'd say four days in the chamber, and about a week after that, but knowing daisy, i....'  
'we'll have to keep her resting however we can.' 

silence. there's a fatigue down to her bones, and it tugs her softly back towards sleep.

'i - uh, noticed her arm.'  
'oh... yeah, her mark. she never really talks about that. or... i guess it's on me for not asking. but it has been a while now.'  
'a while - since what?'  
'he died. almost four years ago now.'  
'oh.'  
'honestly, i can't imagine how she got through it.'  
'your - your husband...?'  
'yes. he's, well, he's helping all of this happen from.... somewhere else.'  
'that can't be easy.'  
'i do miss him.......do you mind me asking...?'  
'no, it's alright. i - never met mine.'  
'i'm sorry. us pulling you out of time can't have helped that any.'  
'me dying might have been a bigger problem......' 

her eyes flutter shut, the voices fading. she dreams of jiaying again, wonders if this is how she felt, the pain so heavy and the exhaustion so deep. then she dreams of a world on fire, a world destroyed, cracked right into half. lincoln's voice echoing through a dark room.  
she drifts in and out of consciousness, and in the middle of it all, catches glimpses of him, sitting beside her pod, looking thoughtful.  
_we're going home._  
she's glad he's there.

when she wakes up, there's 1983, and may and yo-yo going to afterlife, and coulson with a new body being fabricated. everyone tells her she should rest - and her body complains endlessly at being forced to stand, and walk, but she has to do something.  
'you also need to get better,' simmons says, and then 'doctor's orders.'  
she can't argue with that.  
and sousa settles into the chair beside her healing pod like he lives there, and she's glad he's there, and that he came over and sat down beside her completely unprompted, or she would have said something stupid like, _can you come with me? when you're sitting near the healing pod i feel -_  
she doesn't know what she feels. something like relief. strength. comfort. better. safer.  
it's just nice that he's there, honestly. she doesn't want to go to deeply into why. 

this time, she dreams about the room her blood was drained in, only she's alone. she bleeds and bleeds, and no one comes to pull the needles out. the ground shakes and trembles under her. her powers don't work, don't answer any call, and the roof collapses onto her, exposing an empty pitch-black sky above, and  
she wakes up with a start. the sudden blue and white above her is blinding, but she stares into the white light until spots appear in her vision, until her breathing evens out. she sits up, the glass rising above her. 

'daisy? are you alright?'

just another nightmare to add to a long list. the feeling of the blood in her body being taken out. the feeling of life slipping through her fingers.

'bad dream.' 

he pushes up from his seat and walks over to her slowly. she notices belatedly that he called her daisy, again. she's not agent johnson anymore. 

'daniel.' she says aloud, and he nods.  
'yes?'  
'your leg,' she says quickly, trying to cover up the fact that she had said his name just to see what it would feel like, 'simmons - ?'  
'yeah.' he leans against the side of the pod, looking down at it, rubbing his thigh softly. 'feels real strange, walking on two feet.' he looks back up at her. 'you want to talk about it?'  
she moves her legs over the side, and stares at the wall in front of them. she rubs her mark softly, tracing her knuckles in circles, feeling him watching. a moment of silence passes before she can bring herself to speak.  
'my mother was... she had powers too. like me. but not quake powers, she.... didn't age.'  
'oh.' he doesn't look fazed - but after everything that he's seen already, it is relatively less strange.  
'she was experimented on. by a hydra scientist, i keep....'  
there's no way to explain this feeling. she doesn't even know where to start unpacking this, unpacking everything. shaking her head a little, she sighs deeply and stares at the wall ahead of them.  
'....... i just wish i could forget some things.'  
'that, i can understand.'  
'right,' she nods, 'mike stevens.'  
he gives her a surprised look, eyebrows knitting together. 'you remember?'  
'it's kind of blur, but.... you... did a good job. being him.'  
too good of a job. if there's one thing she definitely won't ever forget, it's the sound of his voice, the tone and inflection and insistence of _we're going home._  
'i'm glad.'  
she looks up at the edge of the glass pod, tired but dreading sleep. 'hey... got any other stories you can tell me?'  
his eyes drift to follow hers, a silent moment of understanding. 'what kind?'  
she shrugs, pulling her legs back up to the pod. 'any.'  
he goes over to his chair, and pulls it closer to the middle of the room.  
'any, huh? well......' he drops down into the chair as she lies down, turning her head to face him. 'when i was, i was just made east chief of the SSR, there was this actress. whitney frost. real hollywood starlet. her face was everywhere, you couldn't walk down a street without seeing it somewhere. and we...'

.  
..  
...  
....

when she wakes up, she knows something's wrong, but not what. alarms ring across the ship, deke runs through the room, daniel gets to his feet. she gets out of the pod and stumbles a little, rushing to the door.  
'what's happening?'  
may and mack look at her from beside the console, looking just as confused as she is.  
'i don't want to alarm anyone,' deke jogs towards them, 'but we're trapped in a time storm.' 

daisy has had many, many strange and abnormal things happen to her before. she's done many strange and abnormal things.  
but the time storm and what it brings.....  
takes the cake. 

and you'd think the time loop is the thing that drags the carpet out from under her feet. the thing that leaves her more scared and confused than she has probably ever been. 

but it isn't. it's daniel. when everything goes wrong. one minute, he's standing beside her, just fine. the next, he stumbles back into a table. she catches his arm. he's bleeding so much. the front of shirt is almost black with blood. 

'daniel,' she says, 'no - daniel - hold on -'

blood spills from his mouth, his eyes wide, looking up. 

it has to reset, she thinks blindly, praying that this isn't where it stops. it has to reset. 

's - sorry.' 

she puts her hand on the back of his neck as he struggles, not breathing, eyes wild. please, she thinks, please. it has to reset. 

'just hold on, okay, it's going to be okay.'  
'i - I'm....... sorry.'  
she tries not to focus on the blood pooling, staining her hands, her clothes.  
so much blood.  
'you don't have anything to be sorry for,' she says, 'you don't. just hold on.'  
' - do.' he squeezes her other hand. 'do.' 

he shakily raises his hand and tugs on his sleeve, tugging it just above the wrist, and daisy freezes.  
she reaches for his sleeve, her hand shaking, pulling it up, to his elbow, and then more. 

her mark. every curve she knows by heart.  
in white.  
her stomach drops.  
on daniel's arm. like lightning. like a fracture. a fissure. like a timeline, cleaving into two.  
she looks back at him, shocked. 

'why, why didn't -' 

his eyelids flutter. the blood pools.

'I'm.......sorry......' 

the last word escapes a sigh. 

'no,' a panic rises in her throat, 'no, don't leave me, daniel -'

his eyes close.  
the world is silent, for a bitter, horrible second.  
and then, everything goes white.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!  
> u can follow me on tumblr at this @


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